Fritinancy

Avast, Wasteland!

It's September 19, which means International Talk Like a Pirate Day has once again hauled itself over the gunwales and keelhauled the mizzenmast. Or something. To get into the spirit, visit the official website and spend a few pieces of eight on the Pirate Guys' indispensable guide to all things piratical, Pirattitude. Or take the scurvy-dog route and learn basic and advanced pirate lingo on the website, then practice with the English-to-Pirate translator. Over at YouTube, you can see and hear a pirate song one of the Pirate Guys, Cap'n Slappy, wrote "fer the children." (ITLAPD is celebrated on September 19 because it's the birthday of Cap'n Slappy's ex-wife.)

Perhaps you possess a pirate's soul in a landlubbing cube-dweller's body. Fear not, me hearty! Karate Party steps into the breach with a handy Chat Like a Pirate guide for text messages. A few choice examples:

IRBM : I'd Rather Be Marooned ("So...me and my buddies are going to scrape barnacles with our tongues. Interested?" "IRBM.")

POE: Pieces of Eight ("It's all about the POE." "True, brother, true!")

WWLJSPD?: What Would Long John Silver's Parrot Do? (Asked when one is on the horns of an ethical dilemma.)

I would have thought ITLAPD was beneath the lofty academic purview of Language Log, but it turns out those laugh-loving linguists have been following the event since 2003. Drop anchor here to see how they're celebrating this year. Don't miss the annual reproduction of the Corsair ergonomic keyboard for pirates, whose six keys include "R," "!," and "Avast." A corsair, or privateer, was a pirate who operated with the permission of his government. Sound like anyone you know?

Lots more piracy-lunacy links in this Boing Boing post. And the wonderful Wordsmith is featuring words about piracy all week in its A.Word.A.Day feature. (Yesterday: buccaneer. Today: filibuster.) Stop by, subscribe, and consider making a donation to support this excellent web site.

(Remember "a vast wasteland"?)

Image by Richard Winchell.

Pointy-haired Passion

Faithful readers know that I am wont to get a bit tetchy about "corporate passion." I'm gratified to see that Dilbert's Scott Adams is, too.

Word of the Week: Mancation

Mancation: A male-only vacation, or any other period of time when a female significant other is absent. Reputedly coined by Vince Vaughn's character in The Break-Up; included in the lexicon of the brief but very funny blog Manthropology.

Thanks to Strategic Name Development for the link.

The Gods Must Be ROTFL

I'll bet astronomers are over the moon--so to speak--with all the recent press coverage they've been getting. First there was Pluto: is it or isn't it? (It isn't.) Now the little dwarf planet that started this big war is playing a starring--so to speak--role.

The International Astronomical Union announced Thursday that it has renamed the rock formerly known as 2003 UB313. The new name, Eris (pronounced ee'ris), is an inside-astronomy joke: Eris was the Greek goddess of discord and strife, of which there has been plenty in the what-is-a-planet discussions.

In Greek myth, Eris played a part similar to that of the spiteful fairy in Sleeping Beauty: When all the gods except her were invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis (parents-to-be of Achilles), Eris threw a hissy fit and started a quarrel that led to the Trojan War.

Eris is also a principal deity of Discordianism, the modern chaos-based "religion disguised as a joke disguised as a religion."

And there's yet another joke in the name. For a while, UB313 was nicknamed "Xena," after the cult TV show Xena: Warrior Princess, whose leading lady was, of course, Lucy Lawless.

Eris the goddess had a daughter, Dysnomia--literally "lawlessness"--and that's what the astronomers named the dwarf planet's moon.

Dysnomia has a secondary, modern meaning with particular poignance for me: It's a medical condition characterized by a difficulty in remembering names--a fate worse than death for a name developer.

Interestingly, the two dysnomias have different etymologies. The "-nomia" in Dysnomia comes from Greek nomos, which means "law" or "regulation." We've inherited this root in many English words, from Deuteronomy ("second law") to taxonomy ("law of classification") to--yes--astronomy ("regulation of stars").

Dysnomia the affliction has a Latin derivation: nomen, meaning "name." In both words, the "dys-" prefix is from the Greek word meaning "bad" or "abnormal."

It's heartening to see scientists take such an interest in the classics, even if they're still sniping at each other. According to the Los Angeles Times, "Robert Mitchell, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, said it seemed 'a little silly' to give a permanent name based on a controversy that will blow over in time."

Louis Friedman (no relation to your correspondent), executive director of the Planetary Society, said--I'm paraphrasing here--"nyah nyah nyah."

If "the IAU named Mars today, there would be all kinds of politically correct arguments" over naming a planet after the god of war, Friedman said.

(What, you don't know what ROTFL means?)

In Plain American

"When things get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody."

-- Translation of the first lines of the Declaration of Independence into "The American Language" by H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)

The New Centurions

Bellicose times demand bellicose names. At least that's the conclusion I draw from two recently coined brand names.

Last year we learned of Centigon, the vehicle-armoring company renamed (from O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt) by branding biggie Landor. According to Landor's case study, the new name "rhymes with Pentagon and is coined from 'sentry' suggesting protection and 'century' hinting at heritage."

And "Pentagon" hinting at "Death Star." Oh, sorry--wrong branding project.

Actually, I think the spelling of "Centigon" points to "centurion" rather than to "sentry." Although they sound similar, the two words have completely different etymologies.

Now we have the transformation of Medi-Flex, a maker of antiseptic skin preparations, into Enturia. According to the press release, "The company said the brand name Enturia combines parts of the words endurance, centurion, and venture -- three words the company thinks describe it and its products."

I can certainly see the sentry/centurion association for an armorer. But for the maker of an antiseptic sold mostly to hospitals? The word "overkill" comes to mind, and not in a pleasant way.

"Centurion" itself is all over the branding map. Centurion Wireless Technologies owns the dot-com domain, and there are also Centurion boats; a Cessna Centurion airplane; and Centurion stone, a veneer that "looks and feels like natural stone." There was a British Centurion tank in the 1950s, and Buick made a sporty full-size Centurion model in the early 1970s.

The Roman-officer allusion seems especially apt at this moment in history. I predict we'll see more ghosts of ancient Rome bullying their way into our brand lexicon as we continue to slog through misadventures in the far corners of the empire. O tempora! O mores!

Thanks to POPwink for the Enturia news and to Snark Hunting for the Centigon story.

Do Not Pass GO

Tomorrow, the cost of being a capitalist running dog goes way, way up. And the dog itself gets a designer makeover.

I'm talking about Hasbro's new "Monopoly Here & Now" edition, an unabashed paean to 21st-century consumer branding. Five of the little metal tokens--originally a winsome mix of the domestic (flatiron, thimble) and the Industrial Age (battleship, cannon, top hat)--have been replaced with miniature versions of a Toyota Prius, a New Balance running shoe, a Motorola RAZR cellphone, a cup of Starbucks coffee, and an order of McDonald's fries. There are also unbranded versions of a laptop computer, an airplane, and--instead of the old Scottie--the chien du jour, a Labradoodle.

The squares on the game board have gone upscale, too: Replacing Park Place and Broadway--once synonymous with the high life's high rents--are Boston's Fenway Park and New York's Times Square, which says all you need to know about the crassing-down of American culture.

Say buh-bye to Short Line and Reading Rail Road. Say hello to the busiest airports in the U.S.: LAX, JFK, ATL, and ORD.

Each player starts the game with a cool $2 million. Collect another couple mill when you pass GO. But watch your step: Players can go to jail (yes, without passing GO) for committing identity theft or insider trading.

Hasbro hasn't abandoned the classic Monopoly set. And at $12 to $20, it now looks like a bargain compared to the Here & Now edition (about $30).

New York Times advertising writer Stuart Elliott reports that the tokenized merchants didn't pay for their exposure on the game board; instead, Hasbro approached them. According to Mark Belcher, senior vice president for marketing at Hasbro Games, the inclusion of mass brands gives the venerable game--introduced in 1935, in the depths of the Great Depression--"a representation of America in the 21st century."

There's a populist angle to this plutocratic story: Between April and May of this year, more than 3 million Monopoly fans voted on which landmarks to include in the new game. That would explain the presence of the Grand Ole Opry and Disney World, but not why a house in New Orleans commands the same rent ($220,000) as one in Hollywood.

The Times article quotes a consumer advocate who--cue sound of thin stream in wind--predictably deplores the trend. "It's a shame Hasbro has chosen to go this low road," says a shocked, shocked Gary Ruskin, executive director at the nonprofit Commercial Alert, whose somber web site is the perfect counterpoint to Hasbro's raucous, kaleidoscopic presence.

I say, take a chill pill. Monopoly's always been a celebration of avarice. And if not now, when?

So let the game begin. But listen up, Hasbro: Keep your mitts off my Scrabble set.

Aargh

Not playing anywhere near you: Pilates of the Caribbean. However, you may be able to catch a matinee on the poop deck of this vessel. (For the record, the winning caption was "Aye, and he replaced walking the plank with time out.")

(Thanks to Sore Eyes for the Bizarro tip.)

The Little Brand That Could

In January 1995 I paid an absurd amount of money for a product I'd never seen or touched. I still have this item, which I'd ordered from a mail-order catalog based in Sydney, Australia. "Sea Shell Headphones: Hands Free Sounds of the Sea" reads the label on the box. As advertised, each earpiece is a genuine cowrie shell; when I put on the headset, I can hear the faint sound of gentle surf. You probably won't be surprised to learn that the prototype was created for an art installation.

There were a bunch of other things in that order (I know because I saved the receipt)--mainly swim caps (I swam on a masters team back then) imprinted with odd, neatly rendered images: a fez, a light bulb, a smile. On another occasion I ordered a set of seven handkerchiefs, each with the name of a different deadly sin in wickedly appropriate typography: E  NVY says one of them. Then there were the soft, creamy T-shirts with the tidy, quirky designs. This was pre-Internet, so I had to handwrite my orders and send them by mail. It took about a week for my order to reach Sydney and another couple of weeks for my shipment to reach me. Once I tucked a note into my order, mildly complaining that here in California I couldn't find Vegemite--the thick, salty yeast paste that's the Australian national food, and for which I'd developed a craving when I lived overseas--in jars larger than 2 ounces. To my amazement, when my order arrived I discovered a pint jar of the stuff.

The company that delivered this serendipitous happiness was called REMO, and if it seems too good to be true...well, it almost was. REMO had been founded in 1988 by a lapsed lawyer and Sydney native named Remo Giuffre who nearly broke his mother's heart when he told her he wanted to open a general store. Giuffre had something unique in mind for his store, which he articulated in a 1991 catalog: "Store as information broker. We see this as the ultimate service. Enabling our customers to communicate with each other by virtue of their shared relationship with the Store."

In other words, REMO was an Internet brand before there was an Internet.

REMO didn't just sell things (the catalog liked to refer to products as "things," as in "stripey things" and "spotty things"); it told stories about them. And the stories were so compelling and well written that you had to buy the things so you could keep telling yourself the stories, and telling them to your friends. REMO also believed in the power of community: it willingly accepted product ideas and critiques from customers and actually did something with them.

Alas, REMO hit a patch of very bad luck. The company had taken on an operating partner to facilitate growth, and in late 1995 the partner defaulted. In 1996 REMO was forced to close its landmark store, and in 1997 the wonderful catalog went into "hibernation." Giuffre and his family moved for a while to the U.S., where Giuffre worked as a branding strategist for frog design and later Organic.

I didn't know any of this until a few days ago; all I knew was that the catalogs mysteriously stopped arriving. Then I read a post by John Dodds at Make Marketing History about Remo Giuffre, with a link to--mirabile dictu--the REMO General Store web site. Turns out that back in 2000 Giuffre had put together some angel investors and launched a small, nontransactional web site called "The Gathering." It was an overnight viral success: starting with just 90 email addresses, the site drew 6,000 registered CustOMERs. (That's how REMO always spells it; OMER is, of course, REMO spelled backward.) More than 12% of these customers recommended other customers. Even though--here's the incredible thing--there was nothing to buy.

Today we'd recognize this phenomenon for the social-networking miracle it is. But six years ago the market had decreed that online retail was passe. Giuffre couldn't attract a single investor. Still, he refused to give up. He heard about a fledgling online T-shirt company in California, CafePress, and struck up a deal that required only a small capital investment. And REMO was reborn as an e-commerce company, selling a handful of T-shirts, in March 2002. Later that year the first tiny REMO retail "pod" opened in Sydney's domestic airport. Several more have opened since then. Meanwhile, the online store continues to grow. And the principles on which it was founded are stronger than ever.

Chief among those principles is the one articulated in the company's tagline: The Community is the Brand. As Giuffre writes, "We hoist the flag to see who salutes. Whoever salutes probably belongs in our tribe." Go to the General Store web site and you'll see customer photos, customer polls, a customer blog, and--oh yeah--things to buy. You'll also find communications from Giuffre, like the post John Dodds cites, about getting jilted by a long-time supplier because REMO lacks a bricks-and-mortar presence. Characteristically, Giuffre reproduces both sides of the correspondence, including his fervent manifesto, "The Internet is not simply another sales channel for REMO, but rather the means whereby we are able to manifest a merchandising and business model that INVOLVES the community of customers in the development and expression of our brand(s)."

After all these years, I'm thrilled to see REMO back in the game. I'm a sucker for scrappy underdogs (especially Down Under underdogs) with unwavering standards and a generous, inclusive spirit. I cheer when customers hijack a brand and make the brand stronger and more vibrant. And I love those things REMO sells, too. I don't see the Sea Shell Headphones on the site right now, but I'm patient. If REMO could come back from an early grave, maybe they can, too.

Cover Story

The theme of the September 11 issue of The New Yorker is "Five Years After," and the cover art is haunting, beautiful, and mysterious. I was looking forward to hearing the magazine's cover editor, Francoise Mouly, dispel some of the mystery in her interview last week on the public radio program "The World." Big disappointment. For someone who makes her living selecting and (I assume) critiquing art for one of the most literate magazines in the English-speaking world, Mouly was distressingly inarticulate. When program host Lisa Mullins asked Mouly to describe the cover, Mouly demurred, "It's hard to describe an image...I'll try to describe the experience."

And she proceeded to say very little that would help, say, a blind person imagine what the cover is about.

"It's hard to describe an image"? Oh, please. Historians and art critics do it every day. Heck, ordinary people do it on the telephone. I find it disingenuous when people in the image business--art directors, graphic designers, photographers--claim, as they often do, that "words can't express" what they do, or that "the work speaks for itself." Every picture tells a story, folks; and when you're doing a radio interview, your speaking-for-itself work needs a ventriloquist.

As a person in the word trade, I've taken pains to learn some basic vocabulary to communicate with my design counterparts; I'm hardly an expert, but I can talk confidently about white space, sans-serif fonts, drop shadows, full bleeds, and more. I don't think it's too much to ask that picture people learn some storytelling techniques of their own.

For the record, here's what Mouly might have told the radio audience but didn't:

"It's a double cover." Incredibly, neither Mouly nor Mullins mentioned this fact, which is the issue's most salient feature.

"On the first cover, right under the magazine's logo, we see a small figure of a man against a white background. He's holding a slightly curved bar, and his feet dangle in space." Mouly called the image on the cover a silhouette; it isn't. (Amazing that Mouly didn't even use this art term--and she's French! and it's a French word!--correctly.) We clearly see the man's face, which bears a serene expression, eyes downcast, lips smiling slightly.

"When you turn the page, you see a second cover--in brilliant color--that fills in the background that's missing on the white cover." That background is the Manhattan cityscape, with the hollow footprints of the vanished World Trade Center directly beneath the suspended man's dangling feet. Now we begin to grasp the full import of the image, and those of us with long memories will recognize the floating man for who he is.

Mouly did tell this part of the story: On August 24, 1974, a 24-year-old French high-wire artist, Philippe Petit, walked on a steel cable he had surreptitiously attached between the still-unfinished Twin Towers, 1,350 feet above the ground. One hundred thousand people gathered below, and traffic stopped while Petit traversed the 130-foot gap eight times. (Petit published a book about the feat, To Reach the Clouds, in 2002. And animator Michael Sporn made a movie about it; Sporn blogs about the current cover art, and the deeply memorable 2001 Art Spiegelman New Yorker cover, here.)

Here's another interesting fact about the double cover that Mouly didn't mention (I'll be charitable and propose that it was edited out): Two artists share credit for it. This is highly unusual, if not unique, for The New Yorker, and I wondered whether one artist did the top cover and the second did the underlay, or whether the two worked as a team on both images.

Neither, as I discovered when I did a little poking around.

Bay Area artist John Mavroudis was responsible for the cover concept, which he submitted--along with many other ideas for a 9/11 tribute--to The New Yorker. Go here to see his rejected ideas, along with his comments (see? artists can talk about their work!) and a beautifully animated rendition of the version that succeeded. That cover was ultimately rendered by Owen Smith, a children's book illustrator and frequent New Yorker cover artist who also lives near San Francisco; Mavroudis is generous in his praise of Smith's work. Mavroudis and Smith have never met.